Glasgow sheriff imprisons mother for seven days after finding she blocked father from seeing 12-year-old daughter

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2026] SCGLW76
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Sheriff Court
• Judge:
  Sheriff S Reid

Pursuer CF alleged that DE, the mother of his daughter, had wilfully failed without reasonable excuse to obtemper a final contact order, which whom he was entitled to non-residential contact three times a week. The defender maintained that the child simply no longer wished to see her father, although this was first disclosed to the pursuer in her answers to the summary application in December 2025.

The case was heard by Sheriff Stuart Reid in Glasgow Sheriff Court, with Ms C Gilbert, solicitor, appearing for the pursuer and Ms E Loran, solicitor, for the defender.

Suddenly changed address

In 2021, the parties separated after a lengthy period of cohabitation. The pursuer was granted contact in terms of a final decree dated 14 June 2023. For almost two years contact operated without issue, however contact ceased in April 2025 without explanation or variation of the order. Following an attempt to lodge a minute in the original proceedings seeking a finding that the defender failed to obtemper the decree, which was dismissed as incompetent, fresh summary proceedings were lodged in October 2025, with an evidential hearing fixed for May 2026 after numerous delays.

Evidence was given by the pursuer, his mother, and his sister, who adopted their respective affidavits. His evidence was that he discovered that the defender had instructed the child’s school to remove him as an emergency contact in April 2025, that she removed the child from school on days he was scheduled to collect her, that telephone contact suddenly ceased from 22 April 2025 onwards after the defender blocked him on the child’s phone, that the defender suddenly changed address in late April 2025, and that after his solicitors emailed the defender to demand resumption of contact (not having a record of her new address), she appeared at his mother’s house uninvited, called her “a fat gremlin”, and further verbally abused her.

On 19 June 2025, the pursuer attended the child’s last Mass at her primary school and was verbally abused by the defender’s brother and others within earshot of the child. In or around August 2025, the defender enrolled the child at a secondary school which was different to the one the pursuer had reasonably understood she would be enrolled at. The defender gave evidence on her own account but did not lead any from the child or produce any written statement or communication bearing to record her views.

Protracted, brazen, and entrenched

In his decision, Sheriff Reid began by explaining: “It is the duty of the resident parent, using all their parental skills, techniques and stratagems, to encourage, to seek to persuade, and to instruct the child, firmly if need be, to go with the person to whom contact has been granted. The person having custody should do his or her best to ensure that the contact order is implemented and enjoyed. Of course, in exceptional circumstances (such as where there is a real risk of harm to the child or to the resident parent), a reasonable excuse may be capable of being established to an otherwise wilful non-compliance with a contact order. But no such exceptional circumstances were averred, or sought to be proved, in the present case.”

He continued: “Here, the defender’s focus was simply on what the child had said (that is, on the child’s supposed expressed preference), rather than on what the defender herself, as the resident parent, had said or done to encourage, promote and facilitate contact. In any event, on the evidence, I was satisfied that the defender had, in fact, actively impeded the child from communicating, or having contact, with her father.”

Making conclusions on the evidence before him, Sheriff Reid said of the defender’s conduct: “Viewed in totality, the conclusion is overwhelming that the defender has pursued a concerted course of conduct to cut the pursuer out of Juliet’s life. Not only has the defender failed to encourage, promote or facilitate the child’s contact with her father, she has actively impeded and frustrated contact over a prolonged period in excess of 12 months, despite valiant efforts by the pursuer to resume a relationship with his daughter. The defender’s disregard of the contact order is deliberate, prolonged and significant. It is a sad situation. All the reliable, contemporaneous documentation indicates a close, loving, and happy relationship between the pursuer and his daughter.”

He concluded: “Despite having afforded the defender the opportunity to purge the contempt, or at least mitigate the penalty, little appears to have been done by her to promote a healthy resumption of contact between father and daughter. The defender’s wilful disobedience to the extant order is entrenched. A monetary penalty is insufficient, having regard to the protracted, brazen and entrenched nature of the contempt. As a self-employed hairdresser, with a modest income, she is unable to afford a suitable financial penalty. Besides, she is already significantly indebted to the pursuer, owing a substantial sum by way of judicial expenses, for which there seems little prospect of recovery.”

Sheriff Reid therefore ordered that the defender be imprisoned for 7 days.